Auntie Clio Returns - Part 1

The thing I have missed most in the post two years is talking about books with people who read. This year, I'm not setting any goals, just to read and write reviews. I may join the odd challenge if it suits my current read but even that isn't a goal.

I need more bookish merriment in my life so here I am!

1. The List of Books by Fredric Raphael



January
1. The Alien Stars by Tim Pratt
I received an ARC from Angry Robot Books. Thoughts to come. Does not fit into any current challenges.
2. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Jean Rhys's imagining of how Jane Eyre's mad Bertha Rochester came to be in England and locked in that room.
January's TBR Reduction Challenge
I give you permission to read the most recent book you got on top of your TBR. For many this is one we only get to read eventually but for now I want you to pick up the newest book in Mount TBR and read it. Can you remember the last time you did that?
3. Annotated American Gods by Neil Gaiman, annotated by Leslie S. Klinger
What a sprawling epic story of gods and con men and belief systems and mythologies. I know I will have to read it again.
From this list. Name a book you have on in your TBR pile that is over 500 pages long - 627
Hugos - 2002
4. The Secret Lives of Introverts by Jenn Granneman
This one hit me smack! bang! between the lobes. Lots of "oooooh, that's why" in this book Boy do I feel seen.
From this list. What is the last book you read with a mostly blue cover?
5. Sex in the World of Myth by David Leeming
The more I read about world mythologies, the more I come to understand its role in our lives and religions. This is a brief overview of one aspect of mythology, sex. I enjoyed it and found great value in it.
From this list. Name a book you read this year that had a visual component (i.e. illustrations, photos, art, comics)
6. Neveryona by Samuel R. Delany
From this list Name the last book that you struggled with (and what do you think was behind the struggle?) Delany's experimental style is not for me.
7. In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens by Alice Walker
From this list. A vintage Black Feminist/Womanist text (published before 2000)

February
8. In Your Eyes edited by Richard Derus
From this list Is there that book by an author you love you picked up and still haven’t read because you do not deserve it just yet? Other items got in the way? You have for this challenge to pick that book up and read it
9. The List of Books by Fredric Raphael
From this list What was the last book you acquired or borrowed based on an LTer’s review or casual recommendation? And who was the LTer, if you care to say. Paul Cranswick
10. My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem
From TBR Reduction Plan open a book in the TBR pile by an author you’ve never read before.
11. Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias
From here. Read a horror or dark themed tale (crime counts too!) you want to be unsettled!
12. In Search of the Lost Chord by Danny Goldberg
From this list: Name the book that you read this year that takes place geographically closest to where you live? How close would you estimate it was? Although In Search of the Lost Chord is about the events of 1967, much of them took place in San Francisco which is less than 60 miles north of me.
13. Robby Riverton: Mail Order Bride by Eli Easton
From this list Read a book recommended by a friend with different reading tastes
14. Manifesting Change by Mike Dooley
(no challenge matched)

March
15. Homer's the Iliad and the Odyssey by Alberto Manguel
(no challenge matched)
16. The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
From this list. Name a recent book you read which could be considered a popular book? Recent to me and it's Margaret Atwood, need I say more?
17. From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury
From this list Who was the most recent dead author you read? And what year did they die? Ray Bradbury died in 2012.
18. The Husband Gambit by L. A. Witt
From this list March is named after Mars, so genre fans find a book that very likely has a big battle in it be it in space, our world or a secondary world. Non-genre fans look for a book about a conflict be that a dilemma, family feud etc (Jesse gets disowned for marrying his husband)
19. The Best Man by L. A. Witt

April
20. Girl Sleuth and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak
(no challenge match)
21. Redacted - occasionally I read a book to help with research for my memoir. The topic is pretty grim and ugly so I don't share the title or the topic. I see no reason to upset others needlessly.
22. Bhagavad Gita: Annotated & Explained (touchstone not working) Annotated by Kendra Burroughs Crossen

Ta-da! Welcome.

Welcome back! No goals is perfect!

>4 Berly: Thank you!

Welcome back, Stephanie. I love it when some of my old pals return . xx

I forgot to put this at the top. Some of the books I'm reading for research on my memoir have a rather grim nature to them, so I'll be entering them as redacted in my list.

Next thread I'll be more organized. Stealing from Richard and Book Riot

• Read a biography of an author you admire.
  
• Read a book set in a bookstore.
  
• Read any book from the Women’s Prize shortlist/longlist/winner list.
  
• Read a book in any genre by a POC that’s about joy and not trauma.
  
• Read an anthology featuring diverse voices.
  
• Read a nonfiction YA comic.
  
• Read a romance where at least one of the protagonists is over 40.
  
• Read a classic written by a POC.
  
• Read the book that’s been on your TBR the longest.
  
• Read a political thriller by a marginalized author (BIPOC, or LGBTQIA+).
  
• Read a book with an asexual and/or aromantic main character.
  
• Read an entire poetry collection.
  
• Read an adventure story by a BIPOC author.
  
• Read a book whose movie or TV adaptation you’ve seen (but haven’t read the book).
  
• Read a new-to-you literary magazine (print or digital).
  
• Read a book recommended by a friend with different reading tastes.
  Robby Riverton: Mail Order Bride by Eli Easton - Richard Derus
  
• Read a memoir written by someone who is trans or nonbinary.
  
• Read a “Best _ Writing of the year” book for a topic and year of your choice.
  
• Read a horror novel by a BIPOC author.
  
• Read an award-winning book from the year you were born.
  
• Read a queer retelling of a classic of the canon, fairytale, folklore, or myth.
  
• Read a history about a period you know little about.
  
• Read a book by a disabled author.
  
• Pick a challenge from any of the previous years’ challenges to repeat!
  

Nice to see you back, Stephanie! I'm making the ReadHarder challenge one of my goals this year, too, so I'll look forward to seeing what you read for the categories.

Also swiping from Richard who swiped them from Paul.

1. Name any book you read at any time most recently that was published in the year you turned 18 (1977)
2. Name a book you have on in your TBR pile that is over 500 pages long
Annotated American Gods - 627 pages
3. What is the last book you read with a mostly blue cover?
The Secret Lives of Introverts by Jenn Granneman
4. What is the last book you didn’t finish (and why didn’t you finish it?)
5. What is the last book that scared the bejeebers out of you?
6. Name the book that read either this year or last year that takes place geographically closest to where you live? How close would you estimate it was?
In Search of the Lost Chord by Danny Goldberg - Many of the events took place in San Francisco which is less that 60 miles north of me.
7.What were the topics of the last two nonfiction books you read?
8. Name a recent book you read which could be considered a popular book?
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood - Recent to me and it's Margaret Atwood, need I say more?
9. What was the last book you gave a rating of 5-stars to? And when did you read it? I don't do star ratings.
10. Name a book you read that led you to specifically to read another book (and what was the other book, and what was the connection)
11. Name the author you have most recently become infatuated with.
12. What is the setting of the first novel you read this year?
Outer space - The Alien Stars by Tim Pratt
13. What is the last book you read, fiction or nonfiction, that featured a war in some way (and what war was it)?
14. What was the last book you acquired or borrowed based on an LTer’s review or casual recommendation? And who was the LTer, if you care to say.
The List of Books by Fredric Raphael - Paul Cranswick
15. What the last book you read that involved the future in some way?
16. Name the last book you read that featured a body of water, river, marsh, or significant rainfall?
17. What is last book you read by an author from the Southern Hemisphere?
18. What is the last book you read that you thought had a terrible cover?
19. Who was the most recent dead author you read? And what year did they die?
Ray Bradbury died in 2012.
20. What was the last children’s book (not YA) you read?
21. What was the name of the detective or crime-solver in the most recent crime novel you read?
22. What was the shortest book of any kind you’ve read so far this year?
23. Name the last book that you struggled with (and what do you think was behind the struggle?) Neveryona by Samuel R. Delany Delany's experimental style is not for me.
24. What is the most recent book you added to your library here on LT? - I use Collectorz.com to track my library. There's no easy way to upload a file from there to LT.
25. Name a book you read this year that had a visual component (i.e. illustrations, photos, art, comics)
Sex in the World of Myth by David Leeming
26. What is the title and year of the oldest book you have reviewed on LT in 2022?

>11 AuntieClio: This should be fun!

ETA: I'm removing the months from the list so as not to be constrained by someone else's idea of when I should be reading. This way, it's just another list to compare my reading to.

And I found this Your TBR Reduction Book Challenge

1 – I give you permission to read the most recent book you got on top of your TBR. For many this is one we only get to read eventually but for now I want you to pick up the newest book in Mount TBR and read it. Can you remember the last time you did that?
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Stretch Goal – Read the oldest book in Mount TBR it has waited long enough This is impossible to do since my TBR consists of boxes and piles. Pass.

2 – Is there that book by an author you love you picked up and still haven’t read because you do not deserve it just yet? Other items got in the way? You have for this challenge to pick that book up and read it
In Your Eyes edited by Richard Derus

Stretch Goal – in Mount TBR you may have got a present from a loved one, friend or family member and still not read it. Pick one and read it

3 – For the beginning of Spring I want you to open a book in the TBR pile by an author you’ve never read before
My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem

Stretch Goal – March is named after Mars, so genre fans find a book that very likely has a big battle in it be it in space, our world or a secondary world. Non-genre fans look for a book about a conflict be that a dilemma, family feud etc
The Husband Gambit by L. A. Witt

4 – April is derived from the Latin for ‘to open’ In Mount TBR there may be the first book of a series. Your challenge is to read it

Stretch Goal – as there is an Easter break in this month finish a series you started in one month or if you prefer the remainder of the year

5 – You MAY pick one random book out of Mount TBR and you must read it

Stretch Goal - May was named after Maia the goddess who looked after plants. Find a book with a suitable green subject be it name, setting or theme

6 – Find the longest book in Mount TBR and you must read it

Stretch Goal – June was named for Juno the Goddess of Youth and protection so read a book with a young person as the lead character

7 – In your TBR there may have been a book you know will be a challenging read. Show it who is the Emperor and read that book until it screams for your mercy and then finish it!

Stretch Goal – Pick a book with a royalty theme to it – Emperors, Queens, Duchesses and more all count

8 – Pick a book that takes you away to another place. Read it and relax

Stretch Goal – August comes from Latin for consecrated or venerable. Find a books with Gods in and try not to annoy them so ensure the book is finished

9 – Pick a book with some link to education. Dark Academia; dangerous school etc and try not to go near anyone who is very transphobic

Stretch Goal – Read seven short stories. Anthologies or short story collections are great for this (you may want to finish the whole book after seven though – innocent face!)

10 – Read a horror or dark themed tale (crime counts too!) you want to be unsettled!
Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias

Stretch Goal – Honour the reaper man and find a book that has a death theme

11 – Read three novellas

Stretch Goal – read the 11th book from the beginning or end of your TBR pile

12 – Have you been holding back the finale of a series. Now time to see where it ends?

Stretch Goal – Find a book with a winter theme of some kind

>10 bell7: Hi! Thanks for dropping by.

>12 richardderus: I'm already having fun ;-)

>15 AuntieClio: Of course you are! Nothing beats creating order. (Before chaos does her work.)

>13 AuntieClio: Oh, that's very interesting. June's seems more like the one for March, a long month, than June, a short one. A quibble only.

*smooch*

>16 richardderus: everybody's gotta have a hobby ;-)

This group always helps me to read; welcome back, Stephanie and so well organised!

Happy reading in 2022, Stephanie!

I'm here for the bookish merriment.

Hope you have a great reading year!

Happy reading 2022 :-)

Welcome back, Stephanie!!

2021 Wrap

Worst
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz - a self-help recommended by my former mentor that was just a retread of all the "how to be a better person" books with a little Casteneda thrown in.

Pearl Ruled
The Uses of Enchantment by Buno Bettelheim - this could have been an interesting treatise on the role enchantment (fairy tales/speculative fiction, etc.) plays in our lives. Instead, it was a deadly dull overstretched concern about how to use fairy tales to reach (and teach) problematic children. The one example I remember is how Hansel and Gretel could teach children they were powerful because they overcame the witch. I scoffed because what it taught me (and falls in line with my own history) is that parents aren't to be trusted.

Dahlgren by Samuel R. Delany - I made it about halfway through this tome before giving up. It's supposed to be a masterpiece of some sort in experimental literature, and having read the Beats for so many years, I was sure it wouldn't bother me. But my god, the inanity of it all and the over lingering on sex. After 40 pages of a three-way with a 15-year-old, I tossed it. There was nothing which could entice me to read to the other side.

Most Useful/Interesting
Who Cooked the Last Supper by Rosalind Miles (review to come)
Race in American Science Fiction by Isiah Lavender III (review to come)
Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit- And boy they do. Solnit is firm in saying she did not create the term "mansplaining." This book is filled with essays regarding the way they do simply because she is a woman. Books like these both frustrate ma and liberate me. Frustrate because "why they gotta be that way". Liberate because "oooooh ... it happens to every woman." Kameron Hurley called it being coded the wrong sex and Solnit's book proves that's a true statement.
2 redacted which helped me understand my specific trauma

Most fun
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - Weir has a way of helping me understand the science and this one is an end of the world whopper
The Secret Chapter and The Dark Archive by Genevieve Cogman - I have missed the adventures of Librarian Irene Winters through the multiverse stealing books to keep the balance between chaos (fae) and order (dragon).

29 books for 7,800 pages, 25 different authors

Oldest
Mythology by Edith Hamilton published in 1942

Newest
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir published in 2021

>18 PaulCranswick: I absolutely adore Austin Kleon and his thoughts on creativity.

>19 FAMeulstee: Thank you and welcome!

>20 Crazymamie: What a coincidence!

>21 thornton37814: Hi Lori, thanks for coming by!

>22 Ameise1: Hi Barb! I'm glad you found me.

>23 ronincats: Thanks Roni!

>24 AuntieClio: Ain't the readin' bug grand!

*note to self send Stephanie entire Delany catalog*

>31 richardderus: Note to Richard, don't hurt yourself there

While I was working with my LitCrit mentor I got this idea that I wanted to read all the Hugo winners start to finish so I could feel more grounded in SF/F. Mentor's gone, I feel grounded in my own reading experience. Turns out reading broadly works better for me than being narrowly focused on one genre. Still, I'd like to read and review them.

Below is the list. The authors with * next to them are the winners. The authors without a * is an alternate I chose from the nominees of that year. There are a few authors whom I just refuse to read or support for a number of reasons.

1953 Alfred Bester* The Demolished Man
NO AWARD
1955 Mark Clifton* They'd Rather Be Right (also known as The Forever Machine)
1955 Frank Riley* They'd Rather Be Right (also known as The Forever Machine)
1956 Isaac Asimov The End of Eternity
1958 Fritz Leiber* The Big Time
1959 James Blish* A Case of Conscience
1960 Kurt Vonnegut The Sirens of Titan
1961 Walter M. Miller, Jr.* A Canticle for Leibowitz
1962 Daniel F. Galouye Dark Universe
1963 Arthur C. Clarke A Fall of Moondust
1964 Clifford D. Simak* Here Gather the Stars (also known as Way Station)
1965 Fritz Leiber* The Wanderer
1966 Roger Zelazny* ...And Call Me Conrad (also known as This Immortal)
1967 Samuel R. Delany Babel-17
1968 Roger Zelazny* Lord of Light
1969 John Brunner* Stand on Zanzibar
1970 Ursula K. Le Guin* The Left Hand of Darkness
1971 Larry Niven* Ringworld
1972 Philip José Farmer* To Your Scattered Bodies Go
1973 Isaac Asimov* The Gods Themselves
1974 Arthur C. Clarke* Rendezvous with Rama
1975 Ursula K. Le Guin* The Dispossessed
1976 Joe Haldeman* The Forever War
1977 Kate Wilhelm* Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
1978 Frederik Pohl* Gateway
1979 Vonda N. McIntyre* Dreamsnake
1980 Arthur C. Clarke* The Fountains of Paradise
1981 Joan D. Vinge* The Snow Queen
1982 C. J. Cherryh* Downbelow Station
1983 Isaac Asimov* Foundation's Edge
1984 David Brin* Startide Rising
1985 William Gibson* Neuromancer
1986 C. J. Cherryh Cuckoo's Egg
1987 William Gibson Count Zero
1988 David Brin* The Uplift War
1988 George Alec Effinger When Gravity Fails
1989 C. J. Cherryh* Cyteen
1990 Dan Simmons* Hyperion
1991 Lois McMaster Bujold* The Vor Game
1992 Lois McMaster Bujold* Barrayar
1993 Vernor Vinge* A Fire Upon the Deep
1993 Connie Willis* Doomsday Book
1994 Kim Stanley Robinson* Green Mars
1995 Lois McMaster Bujold* Mirror Dance
1996 Neal Stephenson* The Diamond Age
1997 Kim Stanley Robinson* Blue Mars
1998 Joe Haldeman* Forever Peace
1999 Connie Willis* To Say Nothing of the Dog
2000 Vernor Vinge* A Deepness in the Sky
2000 Lois McMaster Bujold A Civil Campaign
2001 Robert J. Sawyer Calculating God
2002 Neil Gaiman* - American Gods - January 2022
2003 Robert J. Sawyer* Hominids
2004 Lois McMaster Bujold* Paladin of Souls
2005 Susanna Clarke* Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
2006 Robert Charles Wilson* Spin
2007 Vernor Vinge* Rainbows End
2008 Michael Chabon* The Yiddish Policemen's Union
2009 Neil Gaiman* The Graveyard Book
2010 Paolo Bacigalupi* The Windup Girl
2010 China Miéville* The City & the City
2011 Connie Willis* Blackout/All Clear
2012 Jo Walton* Among Others
2013 John Scalzi* Redshirts
2014 Ann Leckie* Ancillary Justice
2015 Cixin Liu (Chinese)* The Three-Body Problem
2015 Ken Liu (translator)* The Three-Body Problem
2016 N. K. Jemisin* The Fifth Season
2017 N. K. Jemisin* The Obelisk Gate
2018 N. K. Jemisin* The Stone Sky
2019 Mary Robinette Kowal* The Calculating Stars
2020 Arkady Martine* A Memory Called Empire
2021 Martha Wells Network Effect

Pearl Ruled in 2022

1. God in Search of Man by Abraham Joshua Heschel
   I'd had hopes to learn more about Judaism from a theological or historical perspective. I didn't take the word philosophy in the subtitle seriously, and should have. By the second chapter I realized we were never going to get past the hair splitting between philosophy of religion and religion itself. So out it goes.
   
2. The Ultimate Book of Mind Maps by Tony Buzan
   Austin Kleon did a video showing how he used mind maps to help his creativity. I didn't quite understand what he was doing so I bought the book. And then found it to be wearisome, dumbed down, and completely unhelpful to me. It's a sort of "this is your brain on pictures and colors and arrows .. oh my!" And while I do struggle with my own creativity, mind maps are not the way for me. So out it goes.
   
3. Early Irish Myths and Sagas translated by Jeffrey Gantz
   I wanted to like this book so much. I was looking forward to reading more of the stories and learn about the mythology of Ireland. What I got was a literal translation of stories patched together from incomplete documents. That's the problem with oral story-telling, each bard has a different way of telling the story and the people who write them down are often scribes trying to keep up with a bard in a great hall telling stories for the king.
   In those cases, it's tough to keep track of the characters and why what they're doing is important and makes any sense. I recognize that I am not the intended audience for these tales, living as I do in a time and land far removed from Ireland where the references would have played well with the audience.
   And so, as I did with Arabian Nights, out it goes.
   
4. Future Perfect edited by H. Bruce Franklin
   Purchased at a time when I thought it would be good for me to know more about the history of science fiction than I do. An anthology of 19th century American science fiction might fit the bill. But ugh ... Franklin has gathered together stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville ... well, Poe is as far as I got.
   
   Nancy Pearl is always in the back of my mind, as are the many discussions we have here about when to drop a book. I'm not in school anymore, I don't need to know more about the history of science fiction anymore and, most importantly, I don't need to keep reading something which bores me.
   
   So, out it goes.
   

A brutal start, but a wise move. Here's to better reading!

>34 AuntieClio: Both sound like excellent decisions indeed.

>33 AuntieClio: I have read a meagre 5 on the honours roster, Stephanie and obviously need to do better.

Have a lovely weekend and I am pumped to see you back and posting. x

>37 PaulCranswick: I am revisiting the idea of reading them in order. The original idea was to critically observe the evolution of Hugo winners. Now, I think I'll read them as they come.

Today's chores involve inflating Gracie's tires so I can drive to the grocery store and pick up groceries. The tires aren't flat, just under-inflated so I bought a cheap-ish air compressor.

Then home to do stuff and read. There will most definitely be a nap because I slept horribly last night and want a do over.

I was Up! Awake! Alert! from 4a-7a, for no obvious reason as Rob wasn't. Somehow that message didn't get sent to my nap circuits and I'm here unnapped.

Prolly crash at 6p.

Home now, lunch consumed. Somehow the store went from frozen egg noodles to frozen won ton soup. Not exactly what I need for my casserole. Now I have to decide what to do about that, plus figure out why my monitor isn't displaying. Thank goodness for my trusty chromebook Now a nap!

Oh the simplicity of unplugged cables. Monitor up and running properly so I can stop stressing over "what if I need a new computer" and go along my merry reading way. whew

100 pages into Annotated American Gods and thinking of the time I read Black Leopard Red Wolf. An encyclopedia of African mythology (yes I know it's a continent filled with many countries) would have gone a long way in providing context to some of the experiences Wolf goes through. I was on the verge of buying one when my mentor discouraged me saying he wanted me to "read only from the text." I didn't much care for the book itself, but in retrospect a reference might have helped me understand why. I have several version of unfinished reviews for it, and almost want to get the reference and read it again.

I read American Gods when it first came out in paperback and loved it. And I'm having a much richer experience with it this reading, both for the nuances I missed the first time around and for the notes about the less familiar to me mythologies.

Since I first read it, I've learned more about various mythologies. And now, I'm realizing, that a mentor who doesn't read widely and discourages his student from gaining context isn't a very good mentor. A great deal is lost if you don't allow yourself to read widely across genres and confine yourself to genre only.

200 pages in to The Annotated American Gods (well, not quite but close enough for hand grenades) and giggling like mad over Shadow's trip to Cairo, IL pronounced Kay Roe, which is the name of the syrup my mom used to make Christmas candies. The mind is a weird thing.

Another 70 pages last night. Didn't make my goal of 100 because I got a late start, lucky I got any because I had to wait for my casserole to finish.

Shadow has left Ibis and Jaquel (and Bastet) and is now somewhat safely ensconced in Lakeside. He's having some truly wild adventures.

There was a character introduced early in the book and I'm wondering what the point was. I don't remember is she shows back up later. Mr Gaiman, I'm watching you.

140 pages read on Tuesday which more than catches me up from my deficit on Monday. No reading on Wednesday, could barely keep my eyes open to log out of everything before diving for the safety of Fluffy Purple Blanket.

Mr. Wednesday is right, there's a storm coming. As if Shadow didn't need reminding, the weather outside is frightful.

Fluffy is a Friend in Need.

No reading last night but I have the next five days off so there will be plenty of reading done then. I have my next stack of 10 ready to go.

Then I think your plans are clear. Enjoy!

>38 AuntieClio: To have read them in order would have been an extraordinary achievement, Stephanie, and would have been obsessive by even my own standards! x

Have a lovely weekend.

>1 AuntieClio: Hello Stephanie. I didn't know I had (at least partially) a soulmate here.
Today I discovered your comment about not putting up with certain stupidity.

Then I saw your opener here (once I got you starred), "...What I have missed most in the past two years is talking about books with people who read." That is exactly what I was saying (online) to one of my best friends. She and I talk books every time we write each other now and I so miss the F2F aspect.

I decided not to manage a Talk thread this year (major electronic/digital burn out). I explained this change in the last of the posts in 2021, here, and where I will list books. Looking forward to visiting sporadically.

I'm not sure why I've become so ... determined ... to read 100 pages a day and keep a sort of log. It's an insane bit of record keeping even for me.

Anyway. I read 92 pages tonight (Friday), which puts me in the deficit of 160 pages for the week. It won't matter once I've run errands tomorrow and can settle in for the rest of my time off. American Gods is only 600 pages so I'm close to finishing.

It's been an interesting ride for Shadow who's just been rescued from Lakeside jail after witnessing Wednesday's death on closed circuit tv.

The character I was concerned about here (The Queen of Sheba) did reappear in the story, enough to make a point about the upcoming war.

I vaguely remember Shadow finding his way to the Tree of Life but the details are fuzzy. I kinda like that because I can put my critic's hat on and watch how Neil Gaiman gets us there.

100pp per day is a healthy count for someone who's still working! And record-keeping is soothing for weirdos like you some few of us humans, so run with it.

>52 richardderus: I saw that! And happily accept the moniker weirdo. :smooch:

*smooch*

>51 AuntieClio: I don't log every day's reading, but I've kept a reading spreadsheet for the past few years and have averaged out my daily reading, which I do try to keep to 100 pages (or more) a day, so I relate to that :)

Finished with book #3 for the year. I think about American Gods now in a very different way than 20 years after I first read it (yeeee ikes!). In those intervening years I've read a lot of mythology, books about gods and their meaning to worshipers. I've also just absorbed stuff and had lots of interesting conversations about a higher power's meaning in my own life.

Gaiman's sprawling book about the war of the old gods vs. the new gods in America was a different book this time. 20ish years is a lot of time to have paid attention to what's going on in the world and to think about the meaning of things.

It's as brain melting today as it was then. It was also fun in a different way because I recognized some of the characters without having to read the annotation. The Norns? Oh, the Greeks called them the Fates. The very "sameness" across cultural mythologies is fascinating. Utterly fascinating.

I skipped right past the bibliography because I have learned it only adds to an already overlong wish list. At my age, I only have so much time left to read and my actual, physical TBR will consume most of that time.

My 2021 gratitude list:

Laundry Care Express - in 2020 when I couldn't do my own laundry, I found Laundry Care Express. It is the best way I spend my money.

Al's Backwood Berrie - Sweet baby Jesus! Small batch jams and jellies in rich flavors. Try the rhubarb!

Sunshine Sisters Be Kind tie-dyed shirts and accessories

Collectorz - online databases to store your (book) collections. Easy to use, robust, personalized data. Download the CLZ Barry app and scan ISBN's with your phone. Export data in multiple formats.

Jango - "... a free online music streaming service that allows you to create custom radio stations. You choose your favorite band or singer and Jango will start playing music from that and other similar artists." I mashed up a bunch of preexisting stations and have interesting music from tango to disco all work day long.

>57 AuntieClio: A wonderful eclectic list indeed.

>56 AuntieClio: It is such a pleasure to find an older read rewarding on a re-read. Hooray!

>50 SandyAMcPherson: Hi Sandy, welcome! It wasn't the F2F i missed but just being around people who read and wanted to talk about the books they read. I've only ever worked one place where someone read for pleasure and reveled in conversations about books.

We've remained friends over the years and is a delight to hang out with because we keep up with each others' minds hopping from one topic to another based on something we read.

Before lockdown, I had a LitCrit mentor who, while teaching me great things about different ways to look at genre, had little knowledge of things outside genre. I once made reference to Damien Hirst (and included a link to the piece I was thinking of) and received the response, "I don't know who that is." Dude, I just gave you a link. Keep up.

During the same time I befriended a co-worker who had a book out at lunchtime. We had nothing in common, and he was bent on showing me how much smarter he was than I. I stopped sitting with him, saying I had deadlines (I was still working with my mentor and writing for a zine). A few days later, he walked past noticing my head was buried in a feminist reader and said, "I hope that pays off for you." Yeah, I'm not eating lunch with you anymore.

And so it was that I found my way back to LibraryThing because the 75ers may not read the same things but we are an enthusiastic bunch and will click the link to the Damien Hirst piece out of a deep thirst for knowledge.

I'm an introvert and it is painful to try to even start a conversation with anyone. Going to all that effort and having it become a disappointing experience makes it even harder.

And it's that practice which helped me realize I don't owe anyone an explanation or even any of my free time. I much prefer my own company and that of my books.

>55 bell7: I too keep a spreadsheet of my reading. 100 pages a day had been on my mind for a long time, not sure why it became important enough to keep track of.

And so, another book gets Pearl Ruled, making it three for the year. See here for why Early Irish Myths and Sagas is going away.

Started book #4, am over 100 pages in and stopping only because I "should" go to bed. If Susan Cain (Quiet) and Laurie Helgoe (Introvert Power) taught me about being an introvert, Jenn Granneman (The Secret Lives of Introverts) is shining the light on nuances I hadn't thought about really. One really useful thing is knowing we tend to overlearn from negative experiences. That fits right in with things I'm learning about a specific traumatic experience which has left its mark in other ways. Thankfully instead of thinking, "Gods I'm a mess," I now think, "well, no wonder I think I'm a mess. Now what can to do with that information?" Sometimes knowing is enough.

>62 AuntieClio: It is wonderful to read your thoughts here because I am in sync (I think) with where you are at (psychologically). I recognize I might be presumptuous in saying so, because people are complex and multi-faceted, no?

I liked Quiet and own the physical book, much flagged for re-reading specific passages. I think my favourite book is by Elaine Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person. Five stars in my review. I have the e-book, but I want to find a paper copy so I can easily find the re-reading for particular reminders at the time. I am more of a physical-book based reader for non-fiction.

One of my "interesting libraries" is the Family Resource Centre collection on LT. This has been a source of useful titles (although I don't live anywhere near Ontario).

Edited to add that how could your LitCrit mentor *not* know who Damien Hirst was? I mean, he was so controversial, upset the artworld's sensibilities to a degree that his Tate Modern retrospective (2012) created an amazing buzz. I even went to see it, mostly because my brother (whom I was visiting at the time) dragged me to the exhibition. Hirst generated so much dialogue in the "what is art" discourse, which might rival some of Andy Warhol's shows. I guess this was a rhetorical question...

>63 SandyAMcPherson: It wasn't so much that he didn't know that floored me, but that he couldn't be bothered to click the link and then talk to me about why that particular piece fit with what we were reading. There were several instances like that. I've come to understand I know lots of things others don't but to not even want to try to enter the conversation when given the resources is beyond me.

she sat across the table from me in a job counseling group. This big blowsy bottle blonde whose resentment at not being able to find work filled the room. The topic of the day was probably networking, anathema to introverts.
"You don't seem shy," she said.
"I'm not. Introverted doesn't mean shy."
"You speak well, you have no problems getting your ideas across. You're shouldn't see yourself as shy," she said on top of me.
I opened my mouth in frustration but the moderator caught it and suggested we move on.
It's a conversation others have tried to have with me frequently. They seem to have problems believing that introversion doesn't equate to shyness. Not all introverts are shy, but some are. Being quiet isn't the same as shy.
The day She Who Listened told me she thought I was an introvert and pointed me to some resources was the day I was liberated. My life began to make sense. I wasn't broken, I was an introvert. And anyone who engaged me in conversation on our small college campus heard about it.
So book #4 The Secret Lives of Introverts by Jenn Granneman is done and dusted. Boy do I feel seen!

100 pages into Sex in the World of Myth by David Leeming. Definitely not as titillating as its title. This is a comparative mythology of cultures around the world, starting with Mesopotamia. Leeming's discussion of early matriarchal societies vs. later patriarchal ones jibes with Rosalind Miles' thesis in Who Cooked the Last Supper, that once men figured out the power of the penis in procreation, they took over and limited women's roles in the world.

Leeming's book is as good as it gets with tracing the evolution of both humans and the roles of gods in them. By the time we get to the Greco-Roman period, it's obvious these stories were told to explain the inexplicable, and that gods were unpredictable and angry, nearly impossible to appease.

Tomorrow is my last day off and then I go back to the salt mines. Blech.

>65 AuntieClio: Great post. I especially liked "She Who Listened". That is powerful.

I feel like I'm intruding to comment too frequently, but I'm fascinated by your posts. It feels so familiar where you say, for example, introversion doesn't equate to shyness, because more than me, one of my daughters expressed the same thing. Comments "don't be so shy" were directed at her all through elementary school. I'm going to be checking for a copy of The Secret Lives of Introverts for sure.

RD is right, Stephanie, 100 pages while your working is a good day's return.

>65 AuntieClio:, >67 SandyAMcPherson: Mrsdrneutron uses these same words to describe herself. When she was young, she was both introverted and shy. As she goes into her college years, she became less shy, but is still as much an introvert as back then. I, on the other hand, have never been shy, but have always landed exactly between introversion and extroversion - to the point that I dread having to interact with people, then get really energized by it when I make myself do it. I'm weird... 😀

>69 drneutron: Not weird, Jim.
I think this situation you experience is what the term "Ambivert" indicates.

That's a new term I just discovered reading the reviews (on LT) for The Secret Lives of Introverts.

>70 SandyAMcPherson: Ambivert - I like it!

I've had Quiet on my wishlist for years now, and it sounds like I need to add this one as well. Glad you found it so meaningful. I've been an INTJ ever since I first encountered the Meyers-Briggs, well over half a century ago now, and am quite content with it.

>66 AuntieClio: Gods, parents...same diff...

Didn't finish my 100 pages in Sex in the World of Myth yesterday. Back at work today. :-(

Wishing you a great weekend, Stephanie.

>67 SandyAMcPherson: You're not intruding. Conversations are one of the reasons I came back.

>69 drneutron: Jim, you are no weirder than any of my other favorite people. Someone once tried to convince me she was an introvert because she was terrified of public speaking. She's much higher on the food chain than I am so I couldn't laugh out loud. (We'd just had a conversation about what introversion was and when I asked why, when she knew all about it, she let me prattle on. "Oh I wanted to hear what you thought.")
I'm not overmuch afraid of public speaking but I have to be really, really, really, overprepared.

>72 ronincats: Roni, Quiet really helped me understand what my life was about.

>73 richardderus: HAH! True dat.

Book #5 is done and dusted and what a delight. Although I think I could have done without the pictures. Think male Venus of Willendorf. David Leeming's Sex in the World of Myth corroborated things I've come to understand about mythologies. They are stories humans use to explain things they don't understand. They may not reflect the current culture/religion but there's an element of reflection there. For instance, many mythologies reflect the male-dominated society in which women participate in specific roles. It's also really interesting, as I said in a post above, to see how similar most of the world's creation myths are.

>80 AuntieClio: Mmm does that mean that it is more likely the Creation myth has credence or simply that there are more dupes out there than was thought?

>81 PaulCranswick: I wouldn't call them dupes as that implies copying to me. To me it means people around the world have a somewhat common vision of how things happened. These are myths so I'm not sure how much credence we can give them.

Most of them are GodA and GoddessA found each other and were so in lust/love they couldn't separate physically until one of their creations forced them apart in order to make room for plants and animals to grow more fully and humans to stand fully. This was both an explanation for how the world came into being and how the sky and earth were separated.

Not only did I finish book #5, I got 100 pages of #6 Neveryóna by Samuel R. Delaney.

Richard, you were saying? :smooch:

It also occurs to me to say all the books I'm reading are from Mt. TBR.

Nearly another 100 pages today. I stopped when I realized I was actually nodding off and losing my place. Best to pack it in and start in another time.

I got caught up and then went over the 100 pages for yesterday in #6 Neveryóna by Samuel R. Delaney. There's only a hundred or so pages left so I'm going to finish but what a dumb book! I'm reading to see where he goes with the story but Pryn is someone to whom things happen, she has very little agency and people talk at her and make decisions for her. I think it's safe to say I won't be reading anymore after this.

>85 AuntieClio: No. You don't mean it. Shocked, shocked I say that Gorgik and his antics failed to amuse. Gasp.

>69 drneutron: And that's me!! I land two points into the E on the Myers Briggs, which basically means I am neither -- so sometimes I need out and sometimes I need in and striking the balance can be hard. I am not shy but I do need alone time to re-center and I then I also need social outings. It's okay though 'cause it mostly works for me.

>70 SandyAMcPherson: Ambivert!! I'll take it.

>78 AuntieClio: I gave Quiet a solid 4 stars.

>65 AuntieClio: Now I'll have to check out The Secret Lives of Introverts by Jenn Granneman. : )

>86 richardderus: yes, clutch your pearls Richard, I really don't like Delany :smooch:

My first mistake was in thinking Samuel R. Delany would be to my taste. After my experience with Dahlgren I should've just put all the rest of his books in the going out box and been done with him. But noooo, I had to give him another chance.

My second mistake was thinking Neveryóna was a novel instead of a loosely connected series of stories, which explains why they didn't make sense as a cohesive plot.

However, things happen to Pryn, the one-dimensional teenaged girl who is the connective thread, that made me say, "no, wait, go back. That can't be right."

Things just happen to her. One day she's walking south towards the big city when she's picked up by three horsemen. The one she rides in front of keeps groping her until she insists they trade places. Inexplicably, she is dropped off to fend for herself and Gorgik appears asking her to walk along with him. As they walk through the Old Market he lectures and lectures and lectures about how the Old Market sustains community through society and commerce. Then they wind up in his underground lair for a meeting about how to free all the slaves when he is attacked. Somehow, Pryn knows enough about using swords to pick one up and kill two? three? more? would be assassins. At which point she runs away.

Madame Keane's servant, who witnessed Pryn's arrival earlier that day, finds her and takes her to the home of Madame. Here Pryn is lectured and lectured and lectured about urban planning and employment practices at the site of the New Market. There's a lot of emotion in this story but one is left with the feeling one has walked into the middle of the conversation. Then Pryn meets Gorgik next door and then she runs away.

In another story she travels with smugglers, one of whom decides that in order to pay for their room she should have sex with two guardsmen he brings up.

The next story, she winds up in the very crowded hovel of a fisherman and his pregnant wife. They decide Pryn is one person too much and that she should move into an abandoned cottage across the road from the quarry in an even smaller hovel and to make money she can be the town whore.

It is just like that all through. Pryn doesn't really question anything or make a decision as just let things get bad enough she runs away. Weird things happen to her and there's no rhyme or reason for these events. The stories don't even work as stories.

I used to follow Delany on Facebook and there is no doubt that he is singularly brilliant but I cannot figure out why he's sold so many books. Obviously, I am not in his key demographic, whatever that might be.

Doing a little library cleaning and came across the fact I'd read Nova by Samuel R. Delany and had fun with it. I'd also earlier read Jewels of Aptor, a frothy fantasy adventure. So having read those and enjoyed them, I must have decided Dahlgren was the outlier when it may be the other way round.

I started book 7 In Search Of Our Mother's Gardens by Alice Walker, a collection of essays having to do with many things including womanism, a term my former mentor of all people made me aware of.

>90 AuntieClio: Stick with Alice, don't go back a-Delanying. It will not end happily.

Nova was an early work...Neveryóna is much closer to his "mature" style, and Dhalgren is...well...it is. Yeup. Indeed it is.

>91 richardderus: Yep. I think the only other Delany I own is Babel-17 which is in my Hugo box. Heinlein won that year so Delany was my second choice. Knowing what I know now I'll go back and pick something else to read. It was pointed out to me at the genesis of this project there was no need to torture myself. So I won't.

More library organizing and list making tonight. I now have all of Mary Robinette Kowal's Astronaut Lady series and Tamsyn Muir's two together.

All the Richard Kadrey, Kevin Hearne, and Chuck Wendig I can find are now together. I'm missing some, the hunt goes on. I also found my copy of God's War by Kameron Hurley.

It should be no surprise I have a list so I can know what I need to complete the series.

Every once in a while I read something which makes me feel seen. Alice Walker's "Be Nobody's Darling" not only sees me but encourages me to be the goofy, introvert who thinks a lot, smart, intelligent person that I am.

Be Nobody’s Darling
Alice Walker

Be nobody’s darling;
Be an outcast.
Take the contradictions
Of your life
And wrap around
You like a shawl,
To parry stones
To keep you warm.

Watch the people succumb
To madness
With ample cheer;
Let them look askance at you
And you askance reply.

Be an outcast;
Be pleased to walk alone
(Uncool)
Or line the crowded
River beds
With other impetuous
Fools.

Make a merry gathering
On the bank
Where thousands perished
For brave hurt words
They said.

Be nobody’s darling;
Be an outcast.
Qualified to live
Among your dead.

Book #7 In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens by Alice Walker finished 31-Jan-22. Truly a wonderfully written collection of essays about being a black woman, but not just a black woman. Walker has a way of digging below the surface to get to the heart of the matter and to find something positive in it. The subtitle is "Womanist Prose." While I was looking for specific instances to be mentioned, the entire book is about being part of the whole community and how black women work just as hard (or harder) as the men to keep going. To keep their families together, to help their neighbors, and each other. I am given to understand that womanism is about more than just women's rights. It's about Civil Rights and human rights and ... it's marvelous to read. This goes on the list of books which have moved me forward in the understanding what it is to prevail as a black women in this racist, sexist country.

Book #8 In Your Eyes by Richard Derus I'm extremely grateful to have the kind of friendship I do with Richard, and goddess knows he has listened to me go on some wild rides. When it comes to love, I know nothing. Well, except what I think I'm supposed to know. But even that knowingness doesn't make real sense to me. Bruised and battered from my birth on, my sense of what it is to love and what it feels like to be loved is seriously skewed. Cynical would be the best way to describe what I think of love now.

And then here comes this slim book of quotations and I am moved. Not to the bitter tears that I once shed as someone left out never to know what love can be. I'm moved by the joyous expressions of the love between these pages. Shakespeare, Seneca, Christopher Isherwood are all represented and all say things about the intimate side of love I've never known. How just a look, a touch, a small sigh can express the entirety of love for another person.

And so I am grateful tonight for the brief lesson in what love can be and that it does exist as I have always imagined for someone. What more joy could I wish people than to feel that depth? Love is love no matter whom and would that we all get to experience it at some time or another.

>96 AuntieClio: What a lovely review, Stephanie. I didn't know this book by Richard existed.
Sorry to read you had such a rough start in life.

>97 FAMeulstee: Hi Anita, thanks.

Book #9. The List of Books by Fredric Raphael. The happiest of places for me is inside a list. And while I don't read from lists anymore, I do like to compare what other people think I should read against what I have. The List of Books was a very happy place indeed. I've read very few of the 3,000 books listed but I have made note of sections I might want to refer back to once Mount TBR is under control. (HAH) I have Paul to thank from bringing this to my attention and for breaking my book buying diet.

>99 AuntieClio: I am pleased to be of help into a return of possible bad habits?!

It is a bit old fashioned being from the beginning of the 1980s but means that there are even more books that I wasn't aware of to be fascinated by.

I added Down Among the Wild Men as a result of this book and it is tremendous.

Have a great weekend. x

>100 PaulCranswick: I found a Kerouac biography I haven't yet read and marked the Feminism and Literary Criticism sections for further examination later. I'm on a book buying diet because it turned from pleasure to anxiety. I have so many books they've literally taken over my small apartment and I won't be able to read them all. Last summer I got rid of the large television which I hadn't used in years and replaced it with bins full of books. So I decided this year to not buy any books and only read from Mount TBR, thereby alleviating some anxiety and getting rid of some of Mount TBR.

On page 128 of book #10, My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem. A memoir of the places she's gone and the things she's seen in all her travels as an activist and journalist. Not what I was expecting but entertaining nonetheless.

83 pages away from completing book #10 My Life on the Road. It's all memoir and organized into chapters about one sort of traveling or learning experience. Gloria Steinem has seen and done a lot and I am grateful for her work as an activist and journalist to bring sexism and racism to the attention of the world. Feminists would not be where we are without her, although where we are seems several steps back from where we were in the '70s. It makes me wish I'd known to pay better attention. Anyway, it's not the hard hitting feminist book I was expecting. It's a nice break from all the ugly fighting over who is a woman, what a woman's right is, and who controls our bodies.

>103 AuntieClio: There is balm in Gilead, too. Rest your fightin' muscles for the next contest.

#10 My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem is done. You betcha I read all the notes but did not make notes of any books which might be worthwhile. At this point in my life, the worthwhile will find me. And if they don't, there are plenty on my own stacks.

#11 is gonna be fun. A horror novel by Gabino Iglesias. I don't remember which one right now and am too lazy to walk to the stack to look.

And OMG why can't it be Friday night already?

A request I may come to regret. One of the challenges above has an item about asking someone who reads completely different books than I for a recommendation. Last night I asked Jackie, who reads more than slutty romances, to recommend a book. She just laughed. I told her it had to be just one, I wasn't going to get into a series. This might be interesting, it'll damned sure be entertaining.

Pollak's Arm by Hans von Trotha. The Jew who discovered the Vatican’s Laocoön sculpture's missing arm gets Gestapo'd in 1943.

How can you resist?

>108 richardderus: I would absolutely read that, even without your recommendation, had I known about it. Our taste is similar in many ways. I wanted to go completely out of anything I would try and so I turned to Jackie who has returned with two author names and for which I need to search.

Book #11 Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias, a BIPOC author who tells stories of the border with Mexico. This book is an ensemble piece with several characters, each chapter advancing their story. All having to do with the horrors of unfulfilled lives in an unforgiving world which looks upon people as supply chain rather than humans.

>110 AuntieClio: A terrific read indeed. I'm glad it worked its magic on you.

>65 AuntieClio: I read Jenn Gannerman's The Secret Lives of Introverts and it was so well-written and insightful, that I've ordered it from our local bookstore. Thanks again for talking about this book.
I chattered on about some of the relevant discoveries I made (and followed up elsewhere) on Richard's thread... having some reticence of being too gabby here. You can find the post with my linky.

>112 SandyAMcPherson: Isn't it wonderful when someone sees us like that? A co-worker asked why I was so quiet (we all work from home and use Ring Central for DMs and the like) and I laughed. Someone just asked the introvert why she is so quiet.

Don't be reluctant to gab away on my thread. The conversation is welcome.

Errands run, chores to do still and then I think a nap before I dive into In Search of the Lost Chord by Danny Goldberg.

I just read that California was an open carry state until the Black Panther availed themselves of that privilege, and white politicians too scared to recognize the rule of law for everyone passed a new law in 1967 making open carry illegal. The things you learn by reading!

>114 AuntieClio: Ronnie Ray-gun was gov when that passed...same year as he gutted the CA university system.

>113 AuntieClio: Thanks for that, always nice when reassurance is offered.

Book #12 In Search of the Lost Chord by Danny Goldberg The psychedelic 60s have always been fascinating to me but I was 8, how could I remember or even know anything about them? Many books from the period focus on one event, one thread, one person. No One Was Killed by John Schultz and Todd Gitlin focuses on the 1968 riot at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, for instance. Goldberg's book is the first I've read which gives a "subjective" overview of everything which happened in that pivotal year, as well as time spent on mitigating factors which brought the US to that moment in history. I can't do justice, right now, to the work Goldberg did since I'm still processing, and connecting the larger world to my much smaller personal world. Nevertheless, In Search of the Lost Chord does a good job synthesizing what was an extremely fertile, bipolar year and its affect on the future.

Here's another reading challenge I found (from The Free Black Women's Library Reading Challenge)
A vintage Black Feminist/Womanist text (published before 2000)
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens by Alice Walker published 1984
A contemporary Black Feminist or Womanist text (published between 2000 & now)
LGBTQ author and/or content - fiction
LGBTQ author and/or content - non fiction
A book by a revolutionary, community activist, political organizer or abolitionist
A book on self care, health, lifestyle strategy or personal development
A romance or erotic novel
A book that centers relationships between women
A young adult or middle schooler’s novel
An award winning novel and/or classic
A debut or famous author’s first
Any book by Octavia Butler
Any book by Toni Morrison
A book by a Caribbean author
A book by an African author
A book that classifies as Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, or Fantasy
A book on Spirituality, Religion, Faith or Ritual
A book with a name in the title
A book with a one word title
A book that was published within the past year
A graphic novel or series of comic books
A memoir or autobiography
A book where characters speak Patois, Creole, Geechee, or AAVE
A book set in your hometown
A collection of poetry, short stories, essays or prose
A book on Body Politics, Trauma, Autonomy or Acceptance
A book on Migration, Travel, Location or Place - fiction or non fiction
A book on Disability or Neurodivergence - fiction or non fiction
A book on Parenting or Child Advocacy
History, Historical Fiction or Slave Narrative

Book 13 Robby Riverton: Mail Order Bride by Eli Easton
The challenge was to read something recommended by someone with different reading tastes from mine. And while Richard and I share many similarities in our reading, M/M romance was not one of them.

Originally, it was the cover which drew me in.


That look on that boy's face said he was up to no-good and I needed to know what kind of no-good he was up to.

Which led me to a charming story of Robby posing as a woman to get away from the thugs who have followed him from New York after he witnessed a murder. He knew Rowena was a mail-order bride, but he had no notion of being one himself, until Trace Crabtree appeared at the same moment Robby was being harassed by the thugs. Dressed as he was, how could Trace not assume Robby was the mail-order bride in question?

Yet, in a few moments, they recognize each other and a love story blooms amongst the chaos of hiding Robby's identity, pretending to be oafish Clovis' soon to be bride, taming the Crabtree family and keeping away from The Bowery Boys, who find him after all.

At the end, Robby survives (was there any doubt?), the family uses napkins and doesn't throw food on the ground from the dinner table. He has charmed the patriarch into forking over for cloth to make new clothes, and trimmed and combed every dirty head and gross beard. The secrets of the bruises is a puzzling one. I mean, red pigs? When all is revealed, the family accepts Robby as he is.

The heart wrenching part comes when Robby is healed enough to head out on a coach bound for San Francisco via Santa Fe. He figures there are parts for him in San Francisco's glittering theatre district. But Trace thinks he needs to stay in Flat Bottom, New Mexico. And my cynical heart almost broke.

These two belong together, truly. They are sweet and adorable and have that aching sort of love which I thought existed only in fairy tales. And well, there's a happy ending after all.

I can forgive Easton's breach of the Civil War timeline and her slight fudging on the geography of a part of New Mexico an hour south (by carriage) of Santa Fe which would have more mountains than described. Robby and Trace are written well, and it's a lot of fun reading Robby as Rowena whip this family into shape. Pa-pa Crabtree, in fact, states in a letter to the boys that if they aren't on the first train from San Francisco on the Atcheson, Topeka and Santa Fe rail once it's completed, they are "no kin of mine."

>119 AuntieClio: Oh yay! You liked it! Silly, sweet, low-heat Finding Love story seduces another cynical old curmudgeon.

>120 richardderus: yeah. Damn it.

Lords and ladies help me, I am such a nerd sometimes. I just figured out I'm reading a book every 3.5 days! At this clip I'll make a lot of books read. My goal is "cleaning house one book at a time."

Book #14 Manifesting Change by Mike Dooley

I've long been a fan of Dooley's daily The Universe Talks email. They're little love notes and motivational bits. Always reminding me I am loved and worthwhile and can do anything because thoughts become things.

Some days I really need to know I'm loved and am worthwhile, even if it's some guy sitting behind his computer sending the same email to thousands of people.

The notion of quantum mechanics and string theory - neither of which I can even pretend to explain - crept into my consciousness. Wait. Scientists are trying to prove a thing called the multiverse in which an infinite number of mes live out a infinite number of possible lives?

Manifesting Change is Dooley's attempt at explaining how the energy we put out into the Universe is what comes back to us. It's also about how to change our thinking to get what we really want. And it fits in with some things I've learned along the way.

Let's get this out of the way. All is love. Yeah, yeah, yeah, my cynical self says. Everyone talks a good game but really?

But here's how it went down for me. I began a gratitude practice. At first it was being thankful for the good unexpected things happening in my life. Extra money in my back account? Woo hoo thank you very much. COVID 19 said stay home, yes thank you very much! Which a year later turned into closing the building and all employees becoming permanent work from home. So grateful for that one. I hated working in offices.

It started off "big" but it turned into smaller and for everything. There isn't something I can't find everyday to be thankful for. Every morning it's "Thank you for the warm water in the shower." Not kidding.

Then I noticed that gratitude practice was making it easier to get through each day without being mad or overwrought because of something foolish. The energy I was putting out was more positive and coming back to me even more positive. I am not, in any sense of the world, Pollyannish. But I can find something to laugh about and be grateful for if I give myself enough time to think about it.

Last personal story. In December 2019, my beat up 1997 Honda Civic with nearly 200K miles on it gave up the ghost.Well, okay. Damn. Thank you for InstaCart and for not having to commute and for my laundry service. Later, thank you for Jackie who came and got me every Friday after work to pick up my groceries because InstaCart was costing too much.

But I gotta have a new car. So I put out into the Universe exactly what I wanted. A newer, bigger Honda with less than 100K miles. I was terrified. What if I couldn't get a loan?

I put the last aside and saved as much money as I could every paycheck with a goal of having $5K for a down payment. Every once in a while I would look at the ads for Hondas on sale and I would get scared. But I kept putting my money aside and kept to saying what I wanted. No more beat up cars on their last legs for me. Oh, and the new one absolutely has to have a back up camera.

On April 28, 2021 I took a deep breath. I had the down payment, I'd been looking for loans. I knew what I wanted. So I went to a bank's website and found the car that met almost all of the parameters I'd set out. I clicked the buy button and by the end of the business day Grace Too came home. I'd already named her and bought an accessory for the day when she was to come home.

It was almost flawlessly easy. I couldn't believe it. Even now, almost a year later, when I walk to the driveway and see this beautiful 2012 Honda Accord with less than 80K miles, a back up camera and black leather seats, I get a big smile. I can't believe she's mine. And I love my Gracie.

Is what I did what Mike Dooley teaches about manifesting change? I think in some ways, yes. And I recognize your mileage may vary and it does sound a lot woo-woo. I am also not going to tell you this is the only way to make changes in your life.

But I will tell you that developing a gratitude practice was absolutely the beginning of life getting better. I still live in a tiny garage apartment. But it turns out, I'm really grateful for that because the way rents are out of control, I could never get into something I'd like which would also afford me the privacy I so cherish. And that hasn't kept me from putting out into the Universe that I want more spacious living quarters so I get all my books out of their boxes and onto shelves. And that my cherished privacy allows me to read all day from my own shelves.

>123 AuntieClio: I'm very much with you on the advantages of looking at the good, and of finding something to laugh about. I tend to be an angry, cranky person, and if I don't watch myself, I make my life worse by dwelling on whatever I'm mad about. Anti-depressants help - I'm very thankful for this bit of better living through chemistry. But laughter helps more.

I got through cancer treatment last year on a combination of curiousity and humour - and there was plenty of humour, as well as things to learn about cancer treatment, medical practices, etc.

Now I'm dealing with retirement the same way. Aging can be hilarious, and I have so much to be grateful for, starting with simply being able to afford to retire.

>124 ArlieS: Better living through chemistry! Grateful for that too. I can be so cranky especially when dealing with the not so smart people at work. I'm thankful to have stories to tell.

So glad you stared down the beast that is cancer. The nurses and doctors are champs.

I don't know how I'm going to afford to retire but it is a dream of mine to retire and read. The pesky how is something Mike Dooley says to put aside and focus on wanting to retire. He says the Universe will set things in motion from there. I'm ready.

>125 AuntieClio: Given that every time you've set aside the how and focused on the what, it's happened, seems to me you're walking in the valley of the shadow of Yes and smiling the smile of the well and truly gruntled.

Started Future Perfect by H. Bruce Franklin tonight. It's an anthology of 19th century American science fiction. In his introduction to Hawthorne and science fiction, he quotes at length from a story called "The Birthmark." I'm wondering if, after reading the introduction and analysis, I even need to bother with reading the story. That's how much he's quoted.

I wrote something

>128 AuntieClio: Can't explain, as I have the same questions...

>128 AuntieClio: Well, we’re glad you’re back too!

As long as it's working....

Burgoineing is a great technology, no?

Pearl Ruled - Future Perfect by H. Bruce Franklin

Purchased at a time when I thought it would be good for me to know more about the history of science fiction than I do. An anthology of 19th century American science fiction might fit the bill. But ugh ... Franklin has gathered together stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville ... well, Poe is as far as I got.

Nancy Pearl is always in the back of my mind, as are the many discussions we have here about when to drop a book. I'm not in school anymore, I don't need to know more about the history of science fiction anymore and, most importantly, I don't need to keep reading something which bores me.

So, out it goes.

Hope all is well, Stephanie.

>132 AuntieClio: I am becoming more adept at stopping reading things that are leading me onto to nowhere!

>132 AuntieClio: So long, sucky book. May your next shelf be one that loves you.

I love coming here to find the fellow-minded discussions, ones that I can't have with friends right now, because it isn't exactly a text/phone call friendly conversation. I'm still keeping out of cafés and other people's homes, and it isn't warm enough, yet, to sit outside having a distanced meet-up.

>133 PaulCranswick:, >134 richardderus: I've improved in the DNF department, too, Paul. I know RD's discussion of pearl-ruling helped, as well as other folks abandoning books and talking about that. It takes a long time to get over that grade-school mindset. At least for me, it feels like a call from the past (which RD once wrote "has nothing new to say"). Yup.

I recently finished an ER book (Raising Humans with Heart) and had some criticism of certain aspects of the book. There was a section that I thought the author denies a child's sensitivity (she called it clinging, and seems not to understand where that innate temperament derives -- p. 58).
Overall, it was a positive book with much child-rearing wisdom, (thanks for the up-thumb Richard, I did see your kind comment). The reason I'm mentioning MacLaughlin's book here is because the talk on LT is very introvert friendly (for the threads I tend to follow most often). It's a good place to find like-minded souls and understanding.

That's all. Nothing else going on, except we had several snow squalls yesterday and I should be out helping to dig out the drifts :D

>133 PaulCranswick: I'm watching the war on Ukraine with utter fascination and complete heartbreak. In Putin, I see a bratty child who is going to stomp all over his toys causing destruction until he gets his way. Which he won't. At some point, I expect he's going to stomp off and leave the mess behind for others to clean up. Than what?

>134 richardderus: I do take some satisfaction in putting the sucky books onto the pile which will be leaving the apartment at some point.

>135 SandyAMcPherson: Sandy! Thank you for poking your head in to join the conversation.

>136 AuntieClio: I wish more people would use the formulation "war on Ukraine" because that's what it is. Ukraine hasn't participated in causing this war, it's been imposed on them by Russia.

The "then what?" is extremely important in a country that has the eternal management problem called Chernobyl.

>108 richardderus: I am confessing this hit me and went on to the Wish List. Which does not count against my actually buying books. It's like licking the window at the pastry shop.

15. Homer's the Iliad and the Odyssey by Alberto Manguel
Manguel traces the impact of Homer's epic poems across the ages. More than that, he writes about the arguments over Homer's existence and the lack of original source material. Was Homer really a blind bard who wandered Rome?

I've read bits and pieces of both for classes, somewhere in the stacks are copies of each. I confess to reading Manguel's book with an attitude of "blah blah blah men war blah blah blah." It's fine and good to learn how James Joyce remade them in his own book Ulysses.

It was amusing to learn how the Catholic Church, St. Augustine and St. Jerome tied themselves into pretzels trying to make room for Homer in their theology. Before they were Catholics, they were well-read men who'd pored over Homer. There needed to be some way to square the pagan literature they'd read with the teachings of the Church.

But then, towards the end, a chapter named "The Eternal Feminine" came along. There had been mention of Helen and Penelope but so far Manguel had focused on the male. Achilles, Priam, Hector, Menelaus, Odysseus. Oh hell, I'd almost missed the most important theme, it was the women who drove the story. Helen is kidnapped and becomes the face which launched a thousand ships. Penelope is the faithful wife fighting off suitors while Odysseus fights his own obstacles to getting back to her. It's not about the men, it's about the women. Women are the reason these events unfold. This requires mulling, and research.

Manguel blew me away with his depth of knowledge. He traced Homer through the ages connecting one author to another to another. Seeking out the critics and interweaving their views into the period of time being written about. And, of course, there's history to give it some context. Homer's the Iliad and the Odyssey packs a lot into a short book. Enough to whet anyone's appetite to know more.

>141 AuntieClio: Nice review; I almost nearly even almost might read it.
I think this is the book you meant to link to, no? Your review deserves an upthumb, which is why I went looking for it.

>142 SandyAMcPherson: Nice catch Sandy. I fixed it.

Funnily enough I found Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad in our shared kindle library so that's what I'm reading now.

>144 AuntieClio: Excellent choice!

16. The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
My notes tell me I have this in the stacks and had already read this. Damned if I can figure how I would forget reading something which centered Penelope and her version of the 20 years she waited for Odysseus to return home.

17. From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury
I find some of Bradbury's work too poetic, too liminal, to be reviewed. From the Dust Returns is once such book.

Here, though, from the epilogue is as good a place to try, "... I had been having trouble with Weird Tales all along because they complained that my stories were not about traditional ghosts. They wanted graveyards, late nights, strange walkers, and amazing murders.

...

I simple couldn't do that; I tried again and again but along the way my stories turned into tales of men who discovered the skeleton inside themselves and were terrified of that skeleton. Or stories about jars full off strange unguessed creatures."

It's a start. My full review of From the Dust Returned can be found here.

18. The Husband Gambit by L. A. Witt
Used to be reading on my phone's Kindle app was just "bed time stories." A few pages before sleep. Dead tree books are too hard to read in bed anymore. As "bed time stories," I didn't count them in my annual list.

But then I met Jesse and Hayden, whose story was more complex that just two boys meeting cute and falling in love. Even after I'd closed the app, I'd lie in bed and worry about them. I wanted to be their Auntie neighbor who could check in and make sure they were okay. Intellectually, I knew they were because no one writes a romance without it turning out okay in the end. But I still worried.

Because The Husband Gambit isn't just about Hayden answering an ad to pretend to be someone's husband for a year for a very large sum of money. It's about taking down a homophobic, racist, very powerful Hollywood producer who's lying to California progressives to get elected to be governor and start burning all the progress we've made in equal rights.

Jesse thinks the only way he can take his father down is by doing the one thing guaranteed to get him disowned. For years, Isaac has threatened to disown his son if he ever married a man.. So Jesse places an ad offering $1.2 million to someone willing to sign the paperwork, go through with the wedding and pretend to be married for 12 months, forcing his father to follow through on his threat.

Hayden answers the ad. Let's face it $1.2mil is nothing to sneeze at when you're eating once a day, pooling money with your roommates to make sure rent's covered for your cockroach infested apartment and everyone has gas to get to their menial jobs. "What the hell?" Hayden figures.

One of my painfully cliched truisms is "Money and sex change everything." In this case, that's definitely true. But neither of the young men are prepared for the roller coaster that is their life together. Jesse only thought he was prepared to be disowned. Hayden only thought he was taking on a paying gig to help a really nice guy keep his father from running for office. It's so much more.

And that L. A. Witt turns discussions about wealth and poverty, sex and family dysfunction into interesting, serious discussions without them becoming lectures is quite a skill. She made me care about these characters in ways I'd never thought too. And, she writes about love, what being a good person means and invites us to the sweetest wedding ever to celebrate their love.

This is my second M/M romance and I wonder what's changed because Danielle Steele and her ilk made me cry angry, ugly tears. But here I am going to sleep hoping the boys are all right and waiting to get their text to come over and hang out.

>149 AuntieClio: I'm bettin' the boys get under your radar because you can relate to them. No one can relate to La Steel's evil wenches who boink the baddest boys.

Posting for later reference: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/g39358054/best-sci-fi-books/

Book #20 - Girl Sleuth Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak

I don't remember where or when I was when I learned Carolyn Keene was nom de plume. So it wasn't surprising to read about. What was surprising was the acrimony between the three women who claimed Nancy as their own. For good reason, of course. It's too bad it turned out like that. I was a big fan of Nancy and the Hardy Boys. I would have loved to know that their owners and writers had been happier with the arrangement.

More later ... it's past my bed time.

It's like licking the window at the pastry shop.

That made me smile and nod at the same time.

22. Bhagavad Gita: Annotated & Explained (touchstone not working) Annotated by Kendra Burroughs Crossen

This one was a task I set myself. One lifetime goal is to learn about world religions. Crossen's annotations and explanations were quotes from other scholars offering commentary on particular verses. I didn't find the annotations and explanations helpful in going deeper, beneath the text so to speak.

Basically, the Bhagavad Gita is part of an epic poem which tells the story of a war between two Indian tribes, the Pandavas and Kauravas. The Bhagavad is a conversation between Krishna and the archer Arjuna, who is related to many in both armies. He wonders about the rightness of war if it is against his own kin.

It is a wide ranging conversation, and in the ways of religion, discusses the many conundrums present in living in the present, doing right, serving his deity and preparing for the next life. Many religions, including Hinduism, speak of such things as being and not being at the same time. None of which make any sense to me in any manner.

I was hoping for more history, more context of the Indian world at the time this was written, not just a different version on the verses I'd just read. I need to go find that book.

>154 AuntieClio: Well kudos for your persevering with the 'Gita and its interpretation. The concepts may be a life long assimilation. I-my-own-self never managed to understand it and I know I'm not alone in that.

>155 SandyAMcPherson: Sandy, lots of "being" and "not being" in there. Plus splitting hairs of various categories of stuff. I'm glad to have read it but don't feel the need to read it again.

>154 AuntieClio: Maybe a cultural history of India? Like The Story of India that Michael Wood wrote? But that's broader in temporal scope...hm.

Anyway, happy new-week's reading.

>154 AuntieClio: The war between the Pandavas and Kauravas sounded familiar, Peter Brook made a movie of the Mahabharata in 1989. Despite of critisism of what we would call now cultural appropriation, the movie did make some sense to me.

>152 AuntieClio: I did not know! Fascinating. I still have five of my hardback Nancy Drews on my bookshelf downstairs. Loved that series and the Hardy Boys, too.

>157 richardderus: I was up at O. M. G. 6AM this morning. It is SATURDAY! So I am taking care of chores and administrivia while waiting for the grocery to text me and tell me I can go pick up groceries. Might as well make good use of the time. :sigh:

>158 FAMeulstee: Oh Anita, that sounds just like my cuppa. I'll see if I can chase it down. Thank you for the recommendation.

>159 Berly: Berly, there will be a fuller review at some point. It was a weird confluence of factors between the sisters who owned the syndicate and the main ghostwriter which turned it acrimonious. One of the factors was a researcher at the ghostwriter's alma mater figuring it out and tracking her down.