wednesday reads n' things
I posted my 2018 books in review here: 2018 reading summary. One thing I didn't include but saw on 
hamsterwoman's journal was a breakdown of books with female and male protagonists, and then further breaking that down by female and male authors, so I calculated that for myself: Not counting the nonfiction books (4) and the ensemble/multiple protagonists (7), I read 15 books with male protagonists (12 by men, 3 by women), and 17 books with female protagonists (13 by women, 4 by men).
What I've recently finished reading:
Baker's Magic by Diane Zahler, a MG fantasy full-cast audiobook which I just finished on my run today. (Today was a frigid and glorious blue-sky day after about 15 inches of snow over the last few days. The path I run on is plowed, and varied between dry and snowpacked, but it was super wonderful to get out and get some exercise!) This is really an adorable book, a sort of fairy tale about 12-year-old Bee, an orphan who becomes a baker's apprentice and discovers that the people who eat her cakes experience whatever emotion she was feeling while she makes them. (A one-star review complained that this is basically drugging people without their consent, which...is true, I guess.)
I started to really like this book when I started noticing little worldbuilding hints dropped, and sure enough, it turns out that this kingdom has no trees - and so ingredients from trees, like nuts and citrus, are unknown. It also turns out that the reason for the lack of trees is that the evil mage Joris, who is regent for the 16-year-old princess Anika (also an orphan) cut them all down a hundred years ago (mages live a long time) to plant tulips which he exports and sells. (And that is a little bit of worldbuilding fail, because if you can ship stuff out, presumably you can ship stuff in? But no matter. *handwave* There are a few bits of dubious worldbuilding and odd plot points, but I still liked the book overall.)
The adventure starts when Bee and Anika meet and become friends, and includes wizards, pirates (including a female pirate captain!), and tree spirits (essentially dryads). There are big themes of family and found family, and it's all quite sweet, with a few age-appropriate scary moments and a dramatic ending. The reading is truly delightful.
What I'm reading now:
The Caroline Alexander translation of the Iliad! I have...read the first part of the introduction!
What I'm reading next:
Lemme get through the Iliad first, okay?
What I've recently finished watching:
We finished S2 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which I generally liked although it had more Joel in it than I would have preferred. I kind of wish they had done more with the "Rose goes to Paris" subplot.
What I'm watching next:
Outlander, which we didn't actually finish watching the previous season of when I had to leave town unexpectedly to take care of my parents. So by the time we catch up with that and then watch this season, the last eps of this season will have aired by the time we're ready to watch them.
What I'm playing now:
Still Pillars of Eternity. Though, B decided to play Witcher 2 because he was enjoying reading the books so much - he'd been dubious of playing the older game because he liked the Witcher 3 graphics, but he'd been trying to play Skyrim and had just gotten bored and so figured that Witcher would be more fun - and he ended up on Roche's path quite by accident, apparently. So since I did Iorveth's path, he's essentially playing a completely different game than I did! And so I'm thinking about firing up my copy (he bought his own, because $3 at GOG.com) and branching off from my old game, just for fun, so we can talk about quests.
Crossposted from isis at Dreamwidth where there are
comments. | Comment at Dreamwidth
hamsterwoman's journal was a breakdown of books with female and male protagonists, and then further breaking that down by female and male authors, so I calculated that for myself: Not counting the nonfiction books (4) and the ensemble/multiple protagonists (7), I read 15 books with male protagonists (12 by men, 3 by women), and 17 books with female protagonists (13 by women, 4 by men).
What I've recently finished reading:
Baker's Magic by Diane Zahler, a MG fantasy full-cast audiobook which I just finished on my run today. (Today was a frigid and glorious blue-sky day after about 15 inches of snow over the last few days. The path I run on is plowed, and varied between dry and snowpacked, but it was super wonderful to get out and get some exercise!) This is really an adorable book, a sort of fairy tale about 12-year-old Bee, an orphan who becomes a baker's apprentice and discovers that the people who eat her cakes experience whatever emotion she was feeling while she makes them. (A one-star review complained that this is basically drugging people without their consent, which...is true, I guess.)
I started to really like this book when I started noticing little worldbuilding hints dropped, and sure enough, it turns out that this kingdom has no trees - and so ingredients from trees, like nuts and citrus, are unknown. It also turns out that the reason for the lack of trees is that the evil mage Joris, who is regent for the 16-year-old princess Anika (also an orphan) cut them all down a hundred years ago (mages live a long time) to plant tulips which he exports and sells. (And that is a little bit of worldbuilding fail, because if you can ship stuff out, presumably you can ship stuff in? But no matter. *handwave* There are a few bits of dubious worldbuilding and odd plot points, but I still liked the book overall.)
The adventure starts when Bee and Anika meet and become friends, and includes wizards, pirates (including a female pirate captain!), and tree spirits (essentially dryads). There are big themes of family and found family, and it's all quite sweet, with a few age-appropriate scary moments and a dramatic ending. The reading is truly delightful.
What I'm reading now:
The Caroline Alexander translation of the Iliad! I have...read the first part of the introduction!
What I'm reading next:
Lemme get through the Iliad first, okay?
What I've recently finished watching:
We finished S2 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which I generally liked although it had more Joel in it than I would have preferred. I kind of wish they had done more with the "Rose goes to Paris" subplot.
What I'm watching next:
Outlander, which we didn't actually finish watching the previous season of when I had to leave town unexpectedly to take care of my parents. So by the time we catch up with that and then watch this season, the last eps of this season will have aired by the time we're ready to watch them.
What I'm playing now:
Still Pillars of Eternity. Though, B decided to play Witcher 2 because he was enjoying reading the books so much - he'd been dubious of playing the older game because he liked the Witcher 3 graphics, but he'd been trying to play Skyrim and had just gotten bored and so figured that Witcher would be more fun - and he ended up on Roche's path quite by accident, apparently. So since I did Iorveth's path, he's essentially playing a completely different game than I did! And so I'm thinking about firing up my copy (he bought his own, because $3 at GOG.com) and branching off from my old game, just for fun, so we can talk about quests.
Crossposted from isis at Dreamwidth where there are
comments. | Comment at Dreamwidth